Here in Germany we are essentially having the same debate. Honestly, I don't mind not getting any money for my exported solar energy since I never installed Solar to export, I installed it to make my own electricity. Now, where I would draw the line is at "negative export rates". I believe the whole concept of energy producers having to sell at negative prices (at the energy stock market) is just stupid. Don't subsidise energy and "throw it away" or penalize those that help make clean and renewable electricity! Make sure to have ways of transporting, storing and transforming that electricity at all times and give incentives to those that produce electricity when it is needed. Cut the feed in tariff to 0 if there is a momentary oversupply, but never go below that.
Instead of building large solar farms,why not encourage/subsidise building on residential and commercial (factory , warehouses, supermarkets and carparks) where it's needed?
One of the problems with commercial properties getting solar may be that as this video says, electricity is getting cheaper during the day and the company may be paying for solar panels to get free vs cheap electricity. It might just not be worth it.
Both things are happening. Big energy companies build solar farms, while individuals and businesses are doing rooftop solar - but it's only recently become profitable, so lots haven't done it yet.
I have Dynamic Contract. No Problems. More Solar and Wind for Cheap Clean Energy. Today was the price zero to 2 cent kWh. Lot of Wind. Very Good. In summer lot of Solar. It gets better All the Time. What a Wonderful World.👍🌹
Solar PV has come down enormously in the last 3 years - from around £270 for a typical panel to only £60 to £80 on average. Batteries however, are still expensive imo, and considering the development of semi-solid state and, further out, solid-state batteries, they don't appear to be a mature technology either. Taking a Tesla Powerwall 3 as an example, it currently will cost around £6000 to purchase a battery that has about 1 days storage for a typical household. When looking at payback times we see that for battery storage, PBT is longer than for simple PV installation. I fully expect to see major advancements in battery energy density and price drops over the next few years, so I'm not so sure that rushing out to get batteries now is a good idea.
There are cheaper batteries out there, such as Pylontech or Dyness. They're under £2000 for a 10kWh battery. I don't think new tech is going to have much impact on home batteries, as size and weight aren't nearly as important as it is for EVs.
Thanks for this Nicolas, however today I have received this email including this information. " Outgoing Octopus is moving from a fixed to a variable tariff. Once your tariff ends, we'll automatically switch you to the new variable version. We’ll continue to pay 15p/kWh but this won't be fixed for 12 months so you won't need to renew each year. The rate can rise and fall based on the wholesale price of energy, but we’ll give you plenty of notice if anything changes." So, Nicolas you are either one of three things: Have a brilliant ability to see the future. Had an insight to whats happening now direct from Octopus or.... This youtube cast gave Octopus the idea to cut my rates. So thanks...
We have solar as well as batteries and we are on Agile (for import) and a generation FIT (for export). I believe that our contract with Scottish Power would make it difficult (perhaps impossible) to export electricity for anything less than is stipulated in the contract. However, I appreciate that we may be in the minority in this regard. It is my understanding that it is cheaper to convince the general public to mop up excess energy at an incentivised price than it is to convince the large operators to either park their wind turbines or isolate the output of the solar farms from the grid. However, as you have stated, much of this is for the mid term rather than immediately and that gives the grid more time to work out what how to play large and small operators to their advantage by way of new contracts. In the past month Agile has hit the price cap, but this is the first time since we have been on that tariff and, while like many, we had kittens for a couple of days, even over that week, we were still better off than had we been on an SVR and without batteries. In the past few days, with renewables generating massively (wind especially) it's been a much better picture. I do agree though, dynamic import and export pricing will become the norm but it will be a bitter pill for the general public to swallow. I feel happy that we have taken the plunge and adopted now .... I just need to get plunge pricing, batteries and Home assistant properly working together and I will be an even happier bunny!
I suppose it's essentially something similar to what sometimes happens with wind turbines - I believe the companies are sometimes paid to switch off their turbines when electricity is plentiful. I'm not convinced of the case for getting batteries; they are expensive and one needs to factor in the efficiency - the only battery I have is in my car and I do have the luxury of a V2G charger and from my measurements I can only get out a maximum of 81% of the energy I put in. I figure that if I would be penalised significantly for exporting solar energy and I do not have a battery backup (my car is not at home or the V2G charger is not working) or other means of using the energy (immersion heater?) then I could follow the shutdown procedure for the inverter and reactivate it later. If it becomes something that happens often, I'm sure someone will come up with an automated switching solution for the market!
Export at the fixed rates will be unsustainable, but a similar agile tariff will be sustainable and probably more lucrative. V2G will also take advantage of the batteries already available. Especially if my next car with V2G and LFP I would happily be a grid level battery for peak shedding. We're paying gas peaked plants considerable sums to do this already, so why not pay storage to do the same?
Morning....I have watched your videos and I think I have to review my plans. Octopus are installing my solar panel and heat pump. My system is a 16 panel 450watt generating 7.12 kW with a battery storage capacity of 10kw. The inverter on the system is a 5.78 microinverter. Having watched this video, I think I may go back to them to get the powereall 3 since it has a higher inverter. Or if they can get my a higher inverter even better as I think if I have to increase my battery storage down the line to 15kw, the inverter may not work for me again. What do you think is the best option ? Get the powerwall 3 which has better capacity inverter or ask them to give me a higher inverter on the enphase battery which is what they have proposed and got the agreement from the DNO. Thanks for your help with this.
See my battery review video I did with Heatable in it I go threw pros and cons of both Enphase and Tesla Powerwall it’s not a one choice fits all but in my option you need at least 5kw output from battery and a minimum of 10kwh storage. If your getting a heat pump that storage needs to be least 15-25kwh if you want to run totally from offpeak and solar
@danielduggan7126 that's your personal circumstance. You don't know my personal circumstances so you can't say if solar is a good option for me. Thanks for your advice but no thanks.
@danielduggan7126 just for context, I have a skoda enyaq electric car. In the process of installing a heat pump and underfloor heating in a 3 bedroom house, just upgrading the kitchen and getting rid of gas cooker to install induction hob..so like I said, without gas in the house, my electric consumption will be alot as the misus is getting a Peugeot electric car too. So people's circumstances are different
Doesn't the Smart Export Guarantee state "SEG tariff rates must always be above zero" i.e the worst it could be is 0.1p/kwh for export and the big 10 suppliers are mandated to offer a SEG tariff?
Impossible to answer with any certainty, but what are your thoughts on the government bringing back a grant to incentivise people to get solar panels fitted the private residencies???
I’d say with almost 100% sure it won’t ever bring it back… solar is cheap to where it was and returns are worth it for people. Money best spent on other incentives
Here in Germany we are essentially having the same debate.
Honestly, I don't mind not getting any money for my exported solar energy since I never installed Solar to export, I installed it to make my own electricity. Now, where I would draw the line is at "negative export rates". I believe the whole concept of energy producers having to sell at negative prices (at the energy stock market) is just stupid. Don't subsidise energy and "throw it away" or penalize those that help make clean and renewable electricity! Make sure to have ways of transporting, storing and transforming that electricity at all times and give incentives to those that produce electricity when it is needed. Cut the feed in tariff to 0 if there is a momentary oversupply, but never go below that.
Solar is still my favourite microgeneration technology due to its passive nature and lack of moving parts.
Instead of building large solar farms,why not encourage/subsidise building on residential and commercial (factory , warehouses, supermarkets and carparks) where it's needed?
Amount of wasted roof space is crazy
One of the problems with commercial properties getting solar may be that as this video says, electricity is getting cheaper during the day and the company may be paying for solar panels to get free vs cheap electricity. It might just not be worth it.
Both things are happening. Big energy companies build solar farms, while individuals and businesses are doing rooftop solar - but it's only recently become profitable, so lots haven't done it yet.
I have Dynamic Contract. No Problems. More Solar and Wind for Cheap Clean Energy. Today was the price zero to 2 cent kWh. Lot of Wind. Very Good. In summer lot of Solar. It gets better All the Time. What a Wonderful World.👍🌹
Solar PV has come down enormously in the last 3 years - from around £270 for a typical panel to only £60 to £80 on average. Batteries however, are still expensive imo, and considering the development of semi-solid state and, further out, solid-state batteries, they don't appear to be a mature technology either. Taking a Tesla Powerwall 3 as an example, it currently will cost around £6000 to purchase a battery that has about 1 days storage for a typical household. When looking at payback times we see that for battery storage, PBT is longer than for simple PV installation. I fully expect to see major advancements in battery energy density and price drops over the next few years, so I'm not so sure that rushing out to get batteries now is a good idea.
There are cheaper batteries out there, such as Pylontech or Dyness. They're under £2000 for a 10kWh battery.
I don't think new tech is going to have much impact on home batteries, as size and weight aren't nearly as important as it is for EVs.
Thanks for this Nicolas, however today I have received this email including this information.
" Outgoing Octopus is moving from a fixed to a variable tariff. Once your tariff ends, we'll automatically switch you to the new variable version.
We’ll continue to pay 15p/kWh but this won't be fixed for 12 months so you won't need to renew each year.
The rate can rise and fall based on the wholesale price of energy, but we’ll give you plenty of notice if anything changes."
So, Nicolas you are either one of three things:
Have a brilliant ability to see the future.
Had an insight to whats happening now direct from Octopus
or.... This youtube cast gave Octopus the idea to cut my rates.
So thanks...
'Variable' in that case means that it changes occasionally during the year. That's not the same as agile, that changes every half hour.
We have solar as well as batteries and we are on Agile (for import) and a generation FIT (for export).
I believe that our contract with Scottish Power would make it difficult (perhaps impossible) to export electricity for anything less than is stipulated in the contract. However, I appreciate that we may be in the minority in this regard.
It is my understanding that it is cheaper to convince the general public to mop up excess energy at an incentivised price than it is to convince the large operators to either park their wind turbines or isolate the output of the solar farms from the grid. However, as you have stated, much of this is for the mid term rather than immediately and that gives the grid more time to work out what how to play large and small operators to their advantage by way of new contracts.
In the past month Agile has hit the price cap, but this is the first time since we have been on that tariff and, while like many, we had kittens for a couple of days, even over that week, we were still better off than had we been on an SVR and without batteries. In the past few days, with renewables generating massively (wind especially) it's been a much better picture.
I do agree though, dynamic import and export pricing will become the norm but it will be a bitter pill for the general public to swallow. I feel happy that we have taken the plunge and adopted now .... I just need to get plunge pricing, batteries and Home assistant properly working together and I will be an even happier bunny!
I suppose it's essentially something similar to what sometimes happens with wind turbines - I believe the companies are sometimes paid to switch off their turbines when electricity is plentiful. I'm not convinced of the case for getting batteries; they are expensive and one needs to factor in the efficiency - the only battery I have is in my car and I do have the luxury of a V2G charger and from my measurements I can only get out a maximum of 81% of the energy I put in. I figure that if I would be penalised significantly for exporting solar energy and I do not have a battery backup (my car is not at home or the V2G charger is not working) or other means of using the energy (immersion heater?) then I could follow the shutdown procedure for the inverter and reactivate it later. If it becomes something that happens often, I'm sure someone will come up with an automated switching solution for the market!
Export at the fixed rates will be unsustainable, but a similar agile tariff will be sustainable and probably more lucrative.
V2G will also take advantage of the batteries already available. Especially if my next car with V2G and LFP I would happily be a grid level battery for peak shedding.
We're paying gas peaked plants considerable sums to do this already, so why not pay storage to do the same?
Morning....I have watched your videos and I think I have to review my plans. Octopus are installing my solar panel and heat pump. My system is a 16 panel 450watt generating 7.12 kW with a battery storage capacity of 10kw. The inverter on the system is a 5.78 microinverter. Having watched this video, I think I may go back to them to get the powereall 3 since it has a higher inverter. Or if they can get my a higher inverter even better as I think if I have to increase my battery storage down the line to 15kw, the inverter may not work for me again. What do you think is the best option ?
Get the powerwall 3 which has better capacity inverter or ask them to give me a higher inverter on the enphase battery which is what they have proposed and got the agreement from the DNO.
Thanks for your help with this.
See my battery review video I did with Heatable in it I go threw pros and cons of both Enphase and Tesla Powerwall it’s not a one choice fits all but in my option you need at least 5kw output from battery and a minimum of 10kwh storage. If your getting a heat pump that storage needs to be least 15-25kwh if you want to run totally from offpeak and solar
Psst if you use my refferal they will knock £100 off your heat pump install evnick.com/energy
@danielduggan7126 that's your personal circumstance. You don't know my personal circumstances so you can't say if solar is a good option for me. Thanks for your advice but no thanks.
@danielduggan7126 just for context, I have a skoda enyaq electric car. In the process of installing a heat pump and underfloor heating in a 3 bedroom house, just upgrading the kitchen and getting rid of gas cooker to install induction hob..so like I said, without gas in the house, my electric consumption will be alot as the misus is getting a Peugeot electric car too. So people's circumstances are different
Surely everyone would be best off to get thermal storage if this happens
Or batteries… just export when needed and charge when not
We need to start building systems that can store excessive energy
The day they start charging to export , I will stop exporting to help and dump all mine to 3kw heater in garden
At sometimes that’s basically what they’d prefer you to do however be wiser to store it in a battery for later use
Doesn't the Smart Export Guarantee state "SEG tariff rates must always be above zero" i.e the worst it could be is 0.1p/kwh for export and the big 10 suppliers are mandated to offer a SEG tariff?
For now yes but rules and SEG can change
Impossible to answer with any certainty, but what are your thoughts on the government bringing back a grant to incentivise people to get solar panels fitted the private residencies???
I’d say with almost 100% sure it won’t ever bring it back… solar is cheap to where it was and returns are worth it for people. Money best spent on other incentives
Do you think we could be taxed on our generation in the future...
Unlikely
Yes. In Denmark people are taxed on export. Look at Gary Does Solar video about export in California.
Highly unlikely to be taxed as hard to work out what’s generated and exported
@JohnR31415 with what has gone gone on from the chancellor over the past months it's possible... hopefully not... keep up the good work.
@@NicolasRaimo we all have a smart metre.....so it could easily be used for smart taxation .